Ambrose & Elsewhere

1. Anatomy of cartoons: Michael Paulus has been figuring out what sort of skeletons would necessarily underlie various famous cartoon figures. Peanuts seems to have gotten the most attention, but also included are the Power Puff Girls, Betty Boop, Marvin the Martian and (my favorite, I think, from this group), a Shmoo. (Snaffled from John De Nardo on Facebook.)

2. Weight-loss made easy! I was in a room with a scale the other day, so I weighed myself. I have no idea why, because I don’t really care: for someone of less than average height, the BMI will always be the enemy. (In other words, shave me hairless and put a dixie-cup on my head and I am a Shmoo. Don’t ask me how I know this.) But there I was, and there the scale was, so I stepped onto it. The last time I weighed myself was several weeks ago, but the difference was striking: I’d dropped something like thirty pounds.

I was mildly pleased (“Take that, Body-Mass Index!”)–at first. Then I realized that a precipitous weight-loss without any real lifestyle change isn’t really a good thing. I looked a little closer and saw that a paperback was wedged under the scale. I pulled it out, and the scale instantly spun around to the 200+ lbs. I’d been expecting. (I’m not being coy about the actual weight; I didn’t have my glasses on, so an exact reading would have been more trouble than it was worth.)

Maddening. Enough to drive someone to drink–which would be appropriate, in a way, since the word scale originally meant “drinking cup” in English, and is cognate with the Scandinavian toast, Skaal! (Yes, I spent some more quality time this afternoon with my close personal friend, the tyrant OED.)

Dave Pitchford was wondering on Facebook about the distinction between sardonic and sarcastic. I’ve often wondered the same thing, so I looked it up in a few places. The short answer seems to be: not much. Maybe, based on the etymologies, sarcastic is more aggressive, and sardonic is more an expression of an internal (even self-destructive) sense of bitterness, but I don’t know that this controls people’s usage in any significant way.

The etymologies themselves are kind of interesting. The root of sarcasm seems to be derived from σαρκαζεῖν: “to rip flesh like dogs, to bite one’s lips.” (Also “pluck grass with closed lips, as grazing horses do” say Liddell, Scott & Jones, but I’m not sure how that’s relevant here, unless it’s the basis of a metaphor for sneering. I’ll pay closer attention the next time I see a horse grazing and get back to you about that.) Anyway, a vivid image for someone making a biting comment.

Sardonic is weirder. It seems to derive from Greek σαρδάνιος which means “bitter or scornful [laughter]” but even in the ancient world people seem to have been baffled as to why. A folk etymology grew up that it referred a Sardinian plant “Ranunculus Sardoüs, Sardinian crowfoot, called σαρδάνη… which when eaten screwed up the face of the eater” (LSJ). The tyrant OED gives a slightly different version: the plant there is “(L. herba Sardonia or Sardôa), which was said to produce facial convulsions resembling horrible laughter, usually followed by death.” About these weeds I know less than nothing, but I would strongly recommend plucking them out if they get mixed in with your chaw; no good can come of them.

1. My Blog Gate post of the week is up, this one a review of Cherie Priest’s novel (or is it?) about werewolves in the Old West, Dreadful Skin.

2. I watched the pilot of Glee last night, and I was strangely impressed. There were some really great performances. The standout was probably Jane Lynch’s gloriously inhumane Sue Sylvester, prima donna director of the cheerleading program, who is shaping up to be Skeletor to Our Hero’s rather inadequate He-Man. It reminded me, in a good way, of Election, as it rendered with ferocious clarity the claustrophobic betrayals and triumphs of high school. Good dialogue, some pleasantly quirky characters.

And the music is good. A little show-tune-y for my taste, but they use it well. For instance, around the middle of the episode the sad-sack glee club goes to check out the competition. The competition puts on a soullessly spectacular performance of Amy Winehouse’s soulful “Rehab.” Our club (the good club, the losers’ club) is devastated, sure that they’re doomed. But it sets up a nice contrast to the club’s episode-ending, heartfelt rehearsal of “Don’t Stop Believing.” If that sounds a bit corny, I’m afraid I’m not really making my point. It is the shocking swollen distortion of corn after years of abusing radioactive mutant killer glowing steroids. It is the Cornball That Ate Schenectady. It is That Corny, Only Worse. And, consequently, not far removed from genius.

But the show has a couple of weaknesses, the most significant one being the hero. Much is made in this episode of his reason for staying on to teach glee club: it’s to recover his glory moment from his high school years. And that’s supposed to be good. But the last thing in the world students should be subjected to is some bozo who can’t adjust to the fact that high school is over for him (or her, as this is an equal opportunity form of bozohood). And, in general, I thought the hero-teacher was the most colorless, shapeless character in the script: even his mercenary principal and his craft-obsessed wife were more interesting.

A potential problem is the competitive structure built into the show. Have you ever seen that Disney movie where a ragtag bunch of losers bands together, discovers the joys of friendship and hard work, and goes on to defeat the Big Rivals in the Big Game? You know, that movie they’ve made approximately forty two billion times? This could so easily become that movie. There were a couple of times in the last half where characters had speeches along the lines of, “I Have Learned an Important Lesson and Here It Is.” A little of this goes a long way.

But it’s clear than the Cheerios will not stand idly by while the glee club usurps their rightful moment in the sun (which is all moments, according to Lynch’s character): open or covert war between the two groups is inevitable. So there will be treachery, betrayal, revenge, pratfalls, humiliation and other, perhaps even more entertaining things. So it could end up being less like Another Damn Disney Movie! 13 and more like Noises Off: the High School Years.

Thing 1. Terrible Yellow Eyes: a really interesting site where a guy named Cory Godbey has undertaken to post a piece of art every week inspired by Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.

My favorites so far are the “Water Thing” and “Where Are They Now?” But every one is interesting; this looks like a promising site. (Sighted at SF Signal.)

Thing 2. I was pedalling down the bike trail the other evening, thinking about this and that, when I noticed a small furred creature on the trail ahead of me. This happens sometimes and didn’t seem like a problem, as the distance gave the rabbit or squirrel or cat or whatever it was plenty of time to cross the path–or turn back, since I do have a front like Jove, an eye like Mars to threaten and command (or so I pay people to tell me sometimes).

Then I noticed it wasn’t really moving too fast. Was it hurt? What sort of beast was it? Legs too short for a cat. Too dark and slow for a squirrel. Dark, except for the white stripe on its back…

SKUNK!

By this time the skunk and I had reached very similar conclusions about each other. He (?) turned on a rather sluggish dime and waddled back whence (s)he had come.

I was careful not to say or do anything that might trigger his (her?) olfactory defense systems, except to holler, “WHOA! SKUNK!” at the top of my voice and pedal madly onwards. I was sure I was going to be doused with skunkiness and, looking back, it seems like I might have chosen something wittier or at least less Keanu-Reeves-like for my last spoken words as a social being.

Anyway, I survived undoused (though I suppose you’ll have to take my word for that) and the principal effect was that I was primed for adrenalin when I faced The Part of the Trail Where the Wind Is Always Against You.

“This is great!” I thought. “I should get that skunk to cross the trail every night!” But, on reflection, the logistics seemed a little tricky. Also, I suppose you’d get used to the danger after a while and it would lose its effect. So that idea, like so many great ideas, slid away into oblivion, or into this blog entry, which is practically the same thing.

“KHA-A-A-A-A-A-A-AN!”

Moorcock and Morlock, together again for the first time. If the reader imagines me as more than a little freaked out, the reader… must be reading my mind! [incoherent sounds of freaking out follow; transcript breaks off]

My Blog Gate post of the week is up… really just a postlet about the “GRRM is not your bitch” thing Neil Gaiman wrote. Which is being applauded around the internet as if it were a nifty from the works of Oscar Wilde. Which I don’t think it is, really.

1. Anna Katherine (one half of whom is alg) writes about systems of magic or the lack thereof in an aptly titled post “rules? in a knife fight?”. This so brilliantly expressed my own feelings that I was left saying, “But on the other hand…” (which is how I reply to most of my own opinions).

2. AV Club’s Keith Phipps has worked his way up to Sturgeon’s More Than Human in his Box of Paperbacks Book Club. This is an unusually good entry in a very good ongoing series of pieces. On the other hand, I still feel that “Baby Is Three” is better as a standalone story than as Pt. 2 of More Than Human.

3. SFFAudio has a nice review of the audiobook version of Blood of Ambrose. The reviewer, Seth Wilson, rightly picks up on some of the traces of Arthurian legend in the background, and mentions among them a long-dead character named Uthar. This character was originally named Lothar, but I became increasingly unhappy with this as the novel wore on, because the name sounded too terrestrial. If I was smashing the world flat and giving it three moons so that it wouldn’t be casually mistaken for Earth, how could I have a character named Lothar? So I coined the name Uthar. I liked the sound of it, especially with the “th” pronounced as a soft theta, not the hard Gemanic aspirated “t” of “Lothar”. And at no point in this whole process, until I read Seth Wilson’s review, did it occur to me that “Uthar” might bring to anyone’s mind Uther Pendragon, a figure of nontrivial importance in the Arthurian mythos. Uff da. I think I’m going to assign myself some sort of prize for lazy nomenclature on this one. On the other hand… No, there is no other hand this time. This is a rare one-handed opinion from me. As of this moment.

There’s a judicious review-article (of what seems to be a problematic book) up at The Nation website: Jordan Davis on Laura Miller’s book about the Narnia series.

I thought it was pretty impressive, and had never heard of Davis before, so I went in search of his work. I found some of his verse scattered about the internet, and I’m not sure I totally get it, but I was struck by a longish poem with some classical content, “Hero and Leander.” Leander, swimming, sees a girl (except she’s not a girl) peeling an orange (except it’s not an orange) on the beach.

Leander, seeing, dripping as he came
Onto rocky land said May I
Have a piece of that
It was pomegranate and she
Smiled red and said
Here and he was in intense pain

(The whole thing is online here)

I like that “smiled red” bit, and the general design of the poem (insofar as I understand it).

[cross-posted a couple places]

My Blog Gate post for the week is up, this one a late-breaking review of a movie you may have already heard a little about.

Unless that’s actually last week’s post, which I unaccountably skipped. Actually, I could account for it, but that would involve complaining or explaining, two things I never do, unless my feet hurt, or I need money, or some exposition is needed for a story, or–hm. Maybe I’ll have to rethink that position.